BLACKSBURG -- If the first judge rules against you, file, file again.

Unhappy with last week's Montgomery County Circuit Court ruling that would allow construction of a big-box store widely thought to be a Wal-Mart Supercenter in town, the Blacksburg Town Council decided Tuesday to take its case to the Virginia Supreme Court.

If the high court hears the case, some experts say, the outcome may curtail the rights of local governments in Virginia to control development within their borders.

Mayor Ron Rordam announced the council's decision moments after a closed session during which the body conferred with Town Attorney Larry Spencer for about 30 minutes. The council then began discussion of a hefty quarterly work session agenda full of other town business.

If Circuit Judge Bobby Turk's ruling is allowed to stand, it would "erode the power of local governments to regulate land use issues," Rordam wrote in a statement. The council has set aside $100,000 for all legal expenses related to the big-box, but after the announcement, Rordam said he hopes the costs, including this latest appeal, will fall short of that amount.

There has been strong opposition to the big-box proposal, which is part of a 40-acre commercial development along South Main Street. The project is being developed by Fairmount Properties of Ohio and local partners Llamas LLC and Diversified Investors LLC. Tuesday's decision to appeal the judge's ruling is something of a victory for big-box opponents, and as one of that group, long-term town resident Kay Moody said she was "extremely pleased" with the gumption of her elected officials to take on the developer and partners.

Moody -- a vocal neighborhood advocate and member of the anti-Wal-Mart group Blacksburg United for Responsible Growth, or BURG -- said it's important for the council to continue fighting because in her opinion "a great many citizens in the town don't want the big-box."

"Why don't we have rights as citizens to control what comes into our town?" she added.

Fairmount attorney and Blacksburg resident Jim Cowan said his clients are disappointed that the council has rejected Turk's ruling and the previous ruling of the town's Board of Zoning Appeals, also in Fairmount's favor. Cowan said Fairmount and partners "remain confident we're vested in our rights to build" the big-box under state law.

Turk notified town officials by letter Friday that he thinks Fairmount and its local partners have a right under the Virginia code to build a 186,000-square-foot retail store without further governmental regulation.

The council had sought to apply the recently approved Ordinance 1450 to the project -- an ordinance that was passed months after the council approved a rezoning for the development. The new ordinance would have given officials the power to scale back or nix the big-box.

John Foote, a respected Northern Virginia land-use litigator, called Turk's ruling the most generous interpretation of developers' rights he's seen so far. Foote, who has a record of arguing before the Virginia Supreme Court, said last week he thinks the justices will likely hear the appeal. Their ruling could clarify for developers and municipalities just how far Virginia localities can go in regulating development.